November 09, 2009

Democrats "Debate" Vermont's Environmental Future

The first public forum between the five Democratic candidates for governor did little to distinguish the candidates from each other on environmental issues, but it's clear each would take a much different approach than outgoing Gov. Jim Douglas.

I was there for the whole two hours and live-blogged via Twitter. You can see some of my Twitter feed here, (you'll have to scroll down a few pages as it's been a couple days). I've posted some of the representative Tweets at the bottom of this post.

To watch each speaker yourself, go to VTDigger.org, a new online journalism site I've plugged in "Fair Game". It's run by former print journalist Anne Galloway. She was at the forum and taped each candidate.

Though Douglas received scant attention by name, several candidates said his administration has been a constant obstacle when it comes to investing resources and effort into: land conservation and affordable housing, local food production, renewable energy, as well as moving Vermont's environmental legacy forward.

The takeaway? Vermont's environmentalists are likely to be happy with any of the Democratic candidates — at least as long as the candidates follow through with their campaign promises (cough, cough).

The five will appear again on Nov. 19 in Burlington at a candidate forum sponsored by the Vermont League of Conservation Voters. Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, the presumptive Republican nominee for governor, was invited to both forums and declined due to "scheduling conflicts," said Todd Bailey, VLCV's executive director. Bailey served as moderator for the Saturday forum.

The five candidates also all agreed that Vermont Yankee should not be relicensed beyond 2012, though several noted that the decision should not be made lightly nor should the legislature wait much longer to decide.

"Every day that goes by without a decision is irresponsible," said Matt Dunne, a former state senator, and the most recent entrant into the race. He announced just last week that he's running for governor.

Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, who will formally kick off his campaign on Nov. 16, represents the county where Vermont Yankee is located. He was non-plussed about shutting down the plant, noting that his constituents are already living near a high-level radioactive nuclear waste dump.

"We have high-level nuclear waste that is going to be there for thousands of thousands of years, and to the people who want to relicsene Vermont Yankee, I say come down and visit my county, visit my people, and convince them that a nuclear dump in my backyard is what you'd want in your backyard," said Shumlin.

All five Democratic hopefuls were represented at the more than two-hour forum, but not all candidates attended. The candidates were given five minutes for opening and closing remarks, and then had about 90 seconds to address six of 11 pre-filed questions. They also took questions from the audience. They took turns, so there was no chance for a "debate" among the five.

Four candidates — State Sen. Susan Bartlett, Dunne, Secretary of State Deb Markowitz and Shumlin — attended the forum in person.

State Senator, and former Lieutenant Governor, Doug Racine was out of the country and was represented by Pat Parenteau, a top environmental aide to Gov. Madeleine Kunin and currently the director of the environmental law clinic at Vermont Law School.

Shumlin was first to go, and used his top slot to his advantage — using the podium to deliver a political pet talk that drove home the fact that the legislature has seen their work on energy policy vetoed numerous times by Douglas in recent years.

Markowitz, who along with Dunne received perhaps the coolest reception of the five, was the first to deliver this line: "We've been presented with a false choice these past eight years — either we protect the environment or we grow jobs."

If there was a "winner" at the forum, it was Parenteau. Perhaps it's because he's not actually running for office and can be a bit more prescriptive in his responses, or because he's one of the state's leading environmentalists. However, it should be noted that Racine is not noted for delivering the kind of passionate speech Parenteau delivered on Saturday. He's known for being a bit more, shall we say, subdued.

Shumlin, on the other hand, is known for being able to rally a crowd and he didn't disappoint. He certainly roused the crowd.

Bartlett seemed to pleasantly surprise many with her detailed and prescriptive answers — in particular on ways in which she would tackle cleaning up Lake Champlain, specifically St. Albans Bay. She said she'd fund a new wastewater treatment plant in St. Albans, and also noted several pilot projects the state has funded to decrease the amount of agricultural runoff into nearby streams and rivers. So far, she said, the pilot project has proved promising and she'd like to expand it. The project buys special equipment for farmers to aerate, or punch holes into the soil, before they spread manure. This allows the manure to seep into the ground more quickly, she noted, as well as water after a rainfall.

With all candidates espousing the need to shut down Vermont Yankee, they said the state needs to rapidly develop more sources of local, renewable energy and invest much more in efficiency measures.

Several of the candidates — Shumlin, Parenteau for Racine, Dunne and Bartlett — faulted Douglas for not taking the legislature's lead, or that of the Vermont Public Service Board under Michael Dworkin more than five years ago, to properly plan for the closure of Vermont Yankee.

"That's why we [the legislature] got involved," said Bartlett. "Someone had to speak up for the people. We couldn't trust the state, we couldn't trust the feds." And, it turns out, they couldn't trust Entergy either.

Failing to find other sources of renewable power, or develop more in-state sources such as purchasing the hydro dams along the Connecticut River, Douglas has left Vermont with fewer options that will help foster new jobs in the burgeoning "green technology" sector, noted Shumlin.

"The energy policy of the past eight years has been: 'Let's always do what we've always done
because what we've always done is what we do,'" said Shumlin.

To a candidate, each said they would place more emphasis on creating jobs that fit with the state's overall environmental mission — to become more self-reliant and to produce more food and energy locally and less carbon.

Each candidate said they would like to make changes in the state's current use program and would continue to invest more in conservation and other programs to combat sprawl and keep compact villages as the core development pattern.

Parenteau made perhaps the most impassioned argument for putting more money into programs such as land conservation and current use, which can keep lands active in either producing food or crops or sequestering carbon.

"The natural capital of Vermont is its source of wealth," argued
Parenteau. "You don't get environmental quality by sitting there and
watching it. You have to make investments in environmental quality just
like you do in any other enterprise or business."

Of course, none of the candidates spelled out what programs they would cut, or resources divert, or taxes they'd raise to make these investments come true. But, each candidate did take pains to note that while environmental issues are important and could provide a key toward economic development in the coming years, the first and foremost challenge facing the new governor is balancing the budget in the wake of the worst recession since the 1930s.

More than 200 citizen activists and more than 60 non-profit organizations gathered Saturday at the Environmental Action 2009 conference to tackle some of the state's most pressing environmental issues as well as hear the positions of gubernatorial prospects on issues ranging from the closure of Vermont Yankee to protecting land conservation programs like current use and the Vermont Housing Conservation Board as well as ways to foster more local food production.

The event was co-hosted by state environmental and public interest organizations: The New England Grassroots Environment Fund, Vermont League of Conservation Voters, Toxics Action Center, Vermont Natural Resources Council, Vermont Public Interest Research Group and Vermont Technical College.

Below are a few Tweets from the Saturday event, which give you a sense, I hope, of what some of the candidates had to say on various topics. They are presented here in reverse order of how they took the stage:

Shut down #VT Yankee? Bartlett: Yes. Leg inserted itself due to lack of trust of state & fed gov't as well as Entergy.

"Though Douglas received scant attention by name, several candidates said his administration has been a constant obstacle when it comes to investing resources and effort into: land conservation and affordable housing, local food production, renewable energy, as well as moving Vermont's environmental legacy forward."

So they would have spent more money than Douglas wanted to. Did they say where they would have gotten this money? Sounds like they didn't.

""We have high-level nuclear waste that is going to be there for thousands of thousands of years, and to the people who want to relicsene Vermont Yankee, I say come down and visit my county, visit my people, and convince them that a nuclear dump in my backyard is what you'd want in your backyard," said Shumlin."

This is not an argument for not squeezing the most electricity you can get out of Yankee. The so-called "nuclear dump" will be there whether they shut down Yankee early or not. No logic here.

You said, "So they would have spent more money than Douglas wanted to. Did they say where they would have gotten this money? Sounds like they didn't."

I wasn't there so I can't say what the candidates did or didn't say. But I can tell you that the "all fuels efficiency" bill that Jim Douglas opposed would have been a huge benefit to the state. His own Dept. of Public Service hired an outside consultant to evaluate the potential and they found that the program would save businesses and residents almost $500 million over ten years. The original proposal was to be funded with something like the tiny lines charge that currently pays for Efficiency VT (which has saved us millions but only deals with electricity).

It would have saved lots of money, created jobs, reduced our dependence on imported heating fuel, and lowered greenhouse gas emissions. So to paraphrase you, his opposition was illogical. Just like his opposition to the purchase of the Conn. River dams (which would have replaced the power from VT Yankee), Jim Douglas' position on this issue was short-sighted and just plain stupid.

Ah, yes. The ol' "spending tons of money would have saved us lots of money" argument. That's your Prog opinion, sir, and nothing more. And as I recall, the "All Fuels" utility was to be funded by a sleazy, disgraceful, shameful, confiscatory tax on VY, no?

According to you, the All Fuels Utility "would have saved lots of money, created jobs, reduced our dependence on imported heating fuel, and lowered greenhouse gas emissions." Geez, Doug, you left out ending world poverty and curing AIDS.

And, assuming we could have afforded the Conn. River dams without dipping into Burlington's "cash pool" as your friend Mayor Leopold likes to do, why do we have to accept your underlying assumption that the state should be in the business of owning and running hydro dams in the first place? Answer: we don't. I don't. I don't like state-owned business. Tough for you.

You're entitled to your opinion. You do seem to have them, and express them with a certain distasteful arrogance. And if you think your ever-so-enlightend opinion gives you the right to call other people "stupid" who reasonably have a different view of public policy from you, well, that reflects badly on you. Congratulations.

1. Doug clearly called the policy stupid not the person. BIG difference. Its pretty clear to anyone that is paying attention that Jim Douglas is not stupid. This is no different than your position on state owned business. Pretty sure you think that's stupid.

2. What I will never understand from folks that think like you is why you would prefer to accept a situation that is bad for businesses bottom line over one that is good for the bottom line because of who (the state) owns what? Do you have to accept it as you say, no of course not, but that also certainly doesn't mean that Vermont owning those dams is stupid. It just means it goes against your philosophy on gov't.

My philosophy, do what's best for Vermont, Vermonters, and our businesses. If that means state owned great, if it means a partnership between the state and private industry great, and if it means all private fantastic. when any of us get too dogmatic as you appear to be on this issue its only the people of our state that suffer, and that's just stupid.

That's funny. Hoff the Statist is the most "dogmatic" thinker in Burlington. Everybody agrees. You can predict his view with 100% certainty. Every single time. No exceptions.

Problem? Blame Douglas.

Problem? Spend more gov't money.

Problem? Raise taxes.

Problem? Gov't should hire more workers.

Problem? Add more gov't regulation.

Problem? Gov't should get in the business.

Problem? Take another shot at Douglas.

I'm dogmatic? Maybe. But, honestly, not as dogmatic as Hoffer. I am in favor of gov't spending on some things, but not others. But I haven't seen one single piece of published writing by Hoffer (and trust me, there's no end to them) in which he addresses a perceived public problem by advocating anything other than, more public spending, higher taxes, greater regulation on business, and bigger gov't. How is that not "dogmatic"? My wallet cannot take any more of his dogma.

Hoffer has been voted as Vermont's "most dogmatic 'independent' policy analyst" in a Seven Days readers' poll.

It's official.

PS, I may have woken up on the wrong side of the bed, but I don't think I'm the only one who wakes up on the wrong side of the bed every time we are treated to one of Hoffer's anti-Douglas, smarty-pants-style lectures on public policy.

Sorry but no it absolutely is not the same thing. smart people do stupid things all time. If you can't distinguish between a stupid act by a person and a stupid person you have real problems. In fact, it would call into question any and all of your opinions due to your lack of ability to grasp this rather simple equation.